Google SketchUp 7 in Software

It might seem odd that Google, the Web 2.0 giant, is now the developer of SketchUp, a niche 3D modelling application previously aimed at professional architects. However there are very good reasons. Essentially, Google wants to enable and encourage users to create 3D content for Google Earth. More to the point with Google now giving SketchUp away for free there are very good reasons for any user with the slightest interest in 3D to download a copy.

With Google now driving SketchUp's development, expectations are naturally high for this latest release, so what's new? The most obvious change is the new Welcome screen which, alongside centralized access to help and training videos, now also offers access to a range of preset templates. Each template sets the units, style and view settings for the current session and you can easily save custom settings for future re-use.

Once you've moved on from the Welcome screen, however, changes are thin on the ground. Look hard around the interface and you might eventually notice that the measurements bar can now be repositioned and that there are new status bar icons providing quick access to help, credits and geo-referencing information. Check out SketchUp's core toolset for rapidly building 3D models by drawing on the flat 2D screen and it too looks unchanged. But dig a little deeper and you'll discover a couple of subtle differences, such as more easily distinguished inference icons and new edge splitting behaviour whenever lines cross. Useful stuff, but not exactly exciting.

SketchUp 7's control over the appearance of models sees similar low-level tweaks, starting with a few more line styles to choose from when giving your designs a hand-drawn feel. The biggest changes are to SketchUp 7's texture handling, with new mip-mapping and onscreen anti-aliasing improving both performance and onscreen quality. In addition, you can now turn any face filled with a flat colour or repeating tile into a unique texture and then use the new Edit Texture command to load the bitmap into your favourite editor. That's handy for adding ivy to a wall or signage to a shopfront, for instance.

So far SketchUp 7 hasn't exactly set the heather on fire and most upgraders probably wouldn't notice any difference to their working experience. This changes, however, as soon as you open SketchUp 7's Components Browser. Previously, this panel was used to browse thumbnails of SketchUp's pre-provided building blocks - a couple of hundred doors, windows, plumbing joints and so on. This content is still available but now it is stored and searchable online with the option of saving models as local collections.

What's more important is that you now have similar access to all the models uploaded by other SketchUp users for sharing via Google's 3D Warehouse website. The practical benefits of this integration are enormous. As you work on a project and decide that it could do with a table, sofa, telly, dog, whale, or whatever, all you need to do is type a search term into the browser and hit Enter. A second or so later the panel fills with matching thumbnails that can be downloaded directly into your model ready for placement. Of course the quality is hugely variable but the sheer numbers available means you should be able to find something suitable. Type 'dog', for example and there are almost 2,000 to choose from, type 'window' and there are over 5,000.

SketchUp 7 adds another major strength to its building block approach to 3D modelling with new support for dynamic components. Now, users of the Pro version of SketchUp (see opposite) can add easy customisability and interactive intelligence to the components that they've created. It's a pity that users of the free SketchUp cannot do likewise, but there are already plenty of dynamic components available directly from SketchUp 7's Components Browser.